Burbage, Birchen and Owler
I had a bit of a break after the last few mad climbing sessions, not going out at all until Thursday night. Andy and I met up after work and headed to Burbage North to meet up with Rich and Jen. They were climbing on “Holly Bush Wall” which turned out not to be named as such in my guidebook! We decided that that must be near a climb of similar name, but found them just about to start on Knight’s Move, a 3 star HVS and allegedly the best thing on Burbage North. While Rich made short work of it, ticking his first HVS on grit, I made my way up Still Orange which was ok, even though I almost didn’t complete it due to not actually checking it’s route in my guidebook.. Doh!
Once off that, Rich convinced me to try Knight’s Move. Urk. I started it nervously, eventually finding some momentum up to the crux and then kinda stopped. I’ve never fell on, or even sat on trad gear in the 2 years I’ve been going outside. As a result, I’ve never really developed the trust I need for a move like that! After what seemed like an eternity of faff, I sat on the my cam for a few minutes to sort my head out. Sitting on the gear and seeing it happily holding me meant I could just get on with it and make the move. Even so, it was pretty tough and go; a rock over onto a highish left foot while palming down on my right hand and reaching for a distant ledge with my left hand. Urk! I eventually completed it after some more faff a bit laster as I drifted a bit far left, making the last gear placement difficult but by then it was getting dark! Andy followed quickly with head torch. I think I envied him for the second: I think it would be an even more fun climb following!
Saturday I went with Kiri on a Foundry outdoor session. We hit Birchen Edge at about 9:30, and top roped all day. It was actually quite good. I spend the whole time on VS’s, most of which would have definitely given me pause on lead. Really good for building up confidence and some technique. Highlights were the brilliant Topsail and the really quite difficult Mast Gully Buttress. It seems that my “technical grade” limit is 5a, which seems to match up based on my logbook.
This morning I took Jo and Ian out to Over Owler Tor to introduce them to bouldering outdoors for the first time. They went over all the problems we did in June. The weather was a little windy and chilly, but I think they enjoyed it. I’m left with very sore hands today, complete with a missing chunk of skin on my thumb.
I think I need to sleep now… shattered!
(Image of Still Orange from Antgirl’s Photostream)
Bouldering, Outdoor | Comment (0)Over Owler Tor
Another week of perfect weather continues, so we decided to go out bouldering to Over Owler Tor.
Andy and I met up with Lou and Mark at Surprise View and we set off up the hill. We first stopped off at Mother Cap, being as it was on the way to try out the two problems with our grasps: Milk Cap and Blue Cap. Milk Cap wasn’t a problem, well if you don’t count the painful jamming! I started but didn’t finish Blue Cap, unlike Andy who monkey’d his way up to the break. Rich and Jen caught up with us at this point so we moved on to Over Owler Tor.
We spent the next 2 hours meandering our way over the majority of the easier problems. Myy favourites were:
- Peak Bouldering Problem 9 (Roof 2), an exciting little pull over a roof from a little cave which left me scratching my forearms somewhat
- Plop, a really delicate corner climb that wasn’t half tempting to continue into a very scary looking solo up the final third.
I didn’t manage to complete Jawbone, which was a particular nice problem from a sit start. I did manage to push it to the last move right at the end of the evening, but just didn’t have the energy left to complete it. One to come back to later!
This time I remembered to bring a half decent camera with me as well, rather than relying on a camera phone so got some, well interesting photos.
Click the images for a bigger version and the photostream with the others on.